Illegal Beef Found Inside Indian Truck
A cow rests next to an empty market lit past the headlights of an budgeted truck in Ramgarh, Rajasthan, on Oct. 24. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Postal service)
YADAVNAGAR, Bharat — Dozens of men spread across the moonlit subcontract, hiding behind trees and wielding long-handled machetes and hockey sticks. They are devout Hindus, fix to fight for their religion.
They are lying in wait for smugglers' trucks carrying cows.
"I am a Hindu. Information technology is my duty to protect the cows," said Rajendra Prasad, 35, who makes religious statues. "I volition not let anyone to smuggle cows for slaughtering."
"Either nosotros die or they die. Simply we won't let anyone consume beef here," said Vijendra Singh, a 22-year-old farmer.
Almost fourscore percent of India'southward population of 1.2 billion is Hindu, and many Hindus avoid beef because they believe cows are sacred. Eating beef and slaughtering cows are banned in many states and ever have been hot-button political issues in the country.
But the mob killing last month of a human wrongly suspected of eating beef has prompted a national debate and calls for tolerance from India's civil and political leaders, as beef-related clashes have escalated.
Prasad and Singh are members of one of dozens of cow protection squads or "beef vigilante" groups operating across India. These aggressive Hindu squads patrol the streets for smugglers by dark and work at charitable shelters for elderly cows past day.
Armed vigilantes wait for trucks in the hopes of stopping vehicles of moo-cow smugglers in Marakpur, Rajasthan, on October. 25. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post)
Vigilantes keep their weapons close by while they wait for trucks to laissez passer in the hopes of stopping cow smugglers in Marakpur, Rajasthan, on Oct. 25. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Mail)
India's secular constitution directs the government to protect cows, and states that ban their slaughter impose varied punishments for violations. But many Hindu activists say they must pace in because regime are not enforcing the laws.
"Our gods and goddesses reside inside the body of the cow," said Satya Pal Acharya, a Sanskrit schoolhouse teacher and a cow protector. "As long as our cows are salubrious and alive, our civilization volition thrive. Sometimes we have to strengthen the hands of the government to implement the laws."
[Calls for calm in India after a Muslim is beaten to death for eating beef]
The recent violence began in September, when an angry Hindu mob bankrupt down a door and dragged a 50-year-old Muslim man from his habitation outside New Delhi, post-obit rumors that he had eaten beef. The mob then kicked him and beat him with bricks until he died. When the police sent the meat stored in his refrigerator for forensic testing, it turned out to exist goat.
Two weeks ago, another vigilante group fatally shell a truck driver transporting cows in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh. In Kashmir, a mob burned a Muslim teenager over rumors of cow slaughter. When a Muslim lawmaker in Kashmir held a "beefiness political party" in protest, he was assaulted past lawmakers from the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Political party (BJP) on the floor of the statehouse, as cameras rolled.
A woman works at a shelter for cows that were seized by vigilantes or during police raids in Ramgarh, Rajasthan, on October. 24. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Mail)
Unidentified men, working at a shelter for cows, take a break in Ramgarh, Rajasthan, on Oct. 24. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post)
Cows that were seized by vigilantes or during police force raids stand in a shelter in Ramgarh, Rajasthan, on Oct. 24. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Mail)
A recent poll published in the news magazine Outlook said that 62 per centum of respondents said that the beef-related killings have tarnished the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party, the BJP.
"The narrow politics propelling the cow agenda and indigenous vigilantism puts roadblocks on Prime Minister Modi'due south drive on evolution," India Today magazine said in an editorial this month. It added that the mandate given to Modi terminal twelvemonth was for economical growth, not for "Hindu revivalism."
But moo-cow protection groups beyond India say they experience energized whenever a BJP regime comes to power.
[Muslims fear rising tide of Hindu nationalism in Modi's India]
"When in that location is a BJP government, our work gets easier," said Nawal Kishore Sharma, the bearded chief of the cow protection squad in Ramgarh boondocks in Rajasthan. He is as well a member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), an affiliate of the BJP.
"When we call the police force to mutter about cow smuggling, they have us seriously."
Sharma'south squad has a broad network of secret informers, including students and shopkeepers, who watch traffic on highways. Some smugglers are armed with illegal guns every bit they ship cows in buses, trucks and even ambulances. Sharma said that makes their work risky. He has been charged in xix cases for causing religious discord and is a state witness against cow smugglers in 10 other cases.
In July, the squad leaders received a call that a pickup truck packed with cows was passing through town.
Nawal Kishore Sharma, 40, checks the load of a truck forced to stop under the suspicion of cow smuggling in Bilaspur, Rajasthan, on Oct. 25. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Postal service)
A vigilante shows a self-made bed of nails used to end a truck under the suspicion of moo-cow smuggling in Saman Bas, Rajasthan, on October. 25. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post)
At midnight, the men combed the highway and village routes. They placed improvised wooden planks with nails on the road to burst the truck's tires. But the smuggler kept changing his route. Sharma grew impatient and called the police.
After an 60 minutes-long chase, police finally stopped the truck, which was camouflaged in plantain leaves.
"8 cows were cramped within, no space to breathe," Sharma said. "They had tied their cervix and legs. Such cruelty to our cow mothers."
Police arrested two men, sent the cows to a shelter and seized the truck. Local police have registered half dozen cases of cow smuggling this yr, police said.
In phone interviews, owners of meat factories in the nearby states of Haryana denied they were selling beef. "It is all a propaganda to defame Muslims," said one manufacturing plant manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the controversial nature of the issue.
Others said that beef is a poor man'due south meal in some villages.
"Poor Muslim families consume beef because chicken or mutton is more expensive," said Younus Alvi, who runs a social welfare group in Haryana. "But of tardily, Muslim religious leaders here have begun telling people that eating beef hurts Hindus and is avoidable under Islam considering the cows are illegally obtained."
Unidentified vigilantes ride armed with sticks and other self-fabricated weapons on their motorbikes in the hopes of finding and stopping vehicles of cow smugglers in Yadavnagar, Rajasthan, on October. 25. (Enrico Fabian/For The Washington Post)
Meanwhile, Prasad, Singh and other cow protectors waited all night. No cow truck came. At dawn, an informer chosen to say that the smugglers had institute out about their patrol and stayed abroad that night.
But information technology was still a success, the men said.
"Even to smuggle one cow, they have to risk their life," said Babulal Prajapati, a television receiver store owner and beef vigilante. "That is how strong we are today."
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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/hindu-cattle-patrols-in-india-seek-to-protect-cows-from-beef-eaters/2015/10/28/89da1cc8-7c08-11e5-bfb6-65300a5ff562_story.html
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